Towards a Chilean Water Governance: A Study on the Los Batros and Paicaví Wetland Reservoirs

Abstract

The creation of the Urban Wetlands Law has emerged as a promising initiative to address the challenges of urban wetland management in Chile. Concepción, with its urban wetlands, is presented as a relevant case study for the analysis of water management of these ecosystems. The simple identification of the actors involved in the territory is not enough to achieve a clear understanding of the problem, so this article focuses on the networks of actors that are involved in the water management practices of the wetland ecosystems of Los Batros and Paicaví. In this work, the application of grounded theory and semi-structured interviews with key actors were combined. The main results indicate that water management has elements that are close to polycentric governance, such as the aforementioned law, where there are coordination initiatives among actors and power limitations in the analyzed cases. However, this research identifies several areas of improvement regarding decentralization, citizen participation, mitigation, and adaptation actions.